Rafael Nadal

Melbourne: Thirteen men’s tournaments will be fought out over three different round-robin formats in the 2007 season, the ATP said on Thursday.

The Adelaide International, starting on December 31 (Sunday) and running through eight days, will be the first to trial one of the new formats aimed at increasing spectator value for money and boosting interest from the media and sponsors, the ATP said.

“Our research with fans, tournaments and media indicate a preference for round-robin,” ATP executive chairman Etienne De Villiers said while announcing the one-year trial.

“We are going to test different formats and see which ones we will introduce and into what type of event for 2008. It is the ‘do it, try it, fix it’ approach,” he added.

The ATP said 24, 36 and 48-player round-robin events would be organised throughout the year debuting in Adelaide and including Delray Beach, the Stella Artois Championships in London and the RCA Championships in Indianapolis.

Critics of the new plans, among them former women’s world No. 1 Lindsay Davenport, say the new set-up could lead to players not trying if they knew they would not be eliminated with a defeat.

The initial entry for Adelaide will be 32 players, with 16 going into qualifying and the remaining 16 automatically entering the round-robin stage.

The 16 from qualifying will be whittled down to eight, who will join the automatic qualifiers in eight groups of three. The players will play each other once and the top player in each group will progress to the quarter finals.

In the event of all three players winning one group game, the quarter-finalist will be decided by number of sets won and then number of games won, an ATP spokesman said.

The top seed will be placed in group I, the second seed in group VIII with one of the other six leading seeds in a group each.

World No. 2 Rafael Nadal gave his support to the one-year trial.

“I have said it at our meetings with Etienne, I think this is a great idea. Finally we really move forward and we do something really good for our sport,” he said in a statement.

“This will be good for our tournaments, for us the players and especially for fans and television since they will be able to have and see their favourite players more than once for sure.”